I cycle nearly every day of my life but today I took to the air. I pride myself that in the last 25 years I hadn't taken this option once. I guess all good runs must come to an end.

Warning: Graphic photo!

http://tonyfisherpuzzles.net/images/20120324.jpg

Ouch! I hope that's the extent of the damage. It's pretty easy to break a hand / wrist / arm flying through the air like that.

Damn! Get well soon.

Thomas

Wow the same thing happened to me last year !
I was driving my bike with my right hand on the left part of the handlebar and was studyingg my classed in my left hand, but I was in the middle of the road and had to accelerate so i tried changeing the the speed from 3-4 to 3-6 but my bike suddenly tipped left and generally when i tip left, I pull with my right hand... to i tipped more and crashed.
My sweater didn't get a scratch and actually pulled off bits of concrete (whaaaat ?) and I had a big bloody spot (approx 10cm) on my elbow.
Consider yourself lucky you don't have a penis-shaped scar on your arm
On a more serious note, hope this heals well and fast !

Now, when you are young you can just shrug off such minor scrapes. But a gentlemen of your advanced years should be more careful! You might break a hip, or worse, bruise your puzzle fingers

Don't worry I still bounce quite well. Just grazes but everything ached this morning.
My chain came off just as I was accelerating to make sure I'd be well clear of an approaching car as I turned across the road. That was enough to come off the seat and pedals and rapidly approaching curb meant it wasn't going to end pretty. Bikes ok and managed to cycle home. Trousers now have some nice ventilation for the coming summer.

Tony, take great care of yourself.
Hope you get well soon. ^^

You should see the other guy!

as a fellow biker (who teaches it at schools for a living) i do hope you had a helmet on...ps what kind of bike is it ...any pics and was it damaged at all...if so can i dib some of the stuff on it?

gibble -road safety officer,mad biker and collector of exspensive shiny things..

It was an old style racing bike but it wasn't damaged. I never wear safety gear but I am not the type to fly around in shorts and a t-shirt either. I believe experience and common sense (assume all other road users are idiots) is the main thing. One minor scrape in 25 years is acceptable to me.
It often amuses me how you see someone in full protective gear ignoring traffic lights. They go to all that trouble and then stick themselves in the firing line.
Not relevant to my little mishap but-
If you are a safety officer I am curious to know what you tell kids about pedestrians. I am amazed at how many will be walking along the path and suddenly step into the road right in front of you without looking. I always study their body language as I approach. You can almost feel they are about to do something stupid. Not sure how you would teach that feeling though.

i tell them to assume that they will all step out without looking so cover the brakes all the time...i do the cycling profficiency at over 90 schools in the county so ive met a few kids who hit cars and people quite a lot...i also solve a 3x3 while they wait their turn to keep their attention ..i cover actual riding on main roads,signaling,junctions and a tonne of other things as well as follow ups for kids who want to go on the roads by themselves..
i would suggest some thin gloves next time tho...stops having to pick gravel out of ya palms for days afterwards

I know that feeling all too well...

My work colleagues actually laugh at how much I wear gloves. I don't care though as I don't want workman's hands or risk injury which may prevent puzzle building. I must confess I don't always wear them on a bike though. I don't think you can cover all injury possibilities. It seems acceptable to have bare legs if you wear a helmet, gloves and fluorescent clothes. I had none but I did have long trousers on which prevented my most serious injury being much worse.

id be more worried about my bike if i crashed///its a very rare canondale with a custom paintjob and some really hard to get hold of paarts...its like juggling with your fav puzzles,,,,fun but you dont dare drop them.....


ive had one accident on the way to a road safety meeting last july(i know),,,,slid sideways down onto the floor smacking my head hard on the ground...if i hadnt been wearing my helmet id have cracked my skull like a big wet melon..my ankles were a mess(again) but at least my brain wasnt on the wrong side of my skull...so these days its helmet and some thin gloves every time no matter the weather..

I've always gone cheap when it comes to bikes. If they look remotely nice I give them a tatty paint job. I always use a good Kryptonite lock but still fear them getting stolen or trashed.

I had a collision with a vehicle once. I was riding on the shoulder of a very busy road during rush hour traffic, and the guy was stopped at a stop sign. He was trying to turn right onto the road, and was looking left waiting for oncoming traffic to pass. I assumed he was stopped at a stop sign waiting for me to pass, so I passed in front of him. The bloke was talking on his cellphone and didn't even bother to actually look in front of his pickup truck before he hit the gas. The collision with his fender knocked me backwards at least 8 feet. I had a heavy booksack, which skidded me across the ground on my back like a turtle. I wasn't wearing a helmet, but thankfully I did not hit my head, possibly thanks to my backpack cushioning the blow to my backside. When I landed, I couldn't feel my knee or even bend my leg at all. Paramedics bolted me to a stretcher and hauled my ass to the hospital. The stretcher was so uncomfortable, I forgot about the pain in my knee. They didn't even look at my leg until after they'd X-rayed my head, neck and back area. Afterwards, they took the head brace off, and examined/ X-rayed my knee/leg. No broken bones, but I had suffered a severe contusion to the inner side of my right kneecap. The doctor could judge the force and angle of the impact by the amount of trauma and bruising; he said he was very surprised that my kneecap wasn't shattered. They put me on muscle relaxers and had me rest up a week off from school. There were some deep bruising on my left leg, in addition to the right, that didn't surface for several days. I had bruises on my body in just about every color of the rainbow imaginable, in various places. Later, we picked up my bicycle and backpack from the University, and the forged aluminum alloy tube in the center of the bike had been severely bent, and bent area was exactly in the location where it had collided with my knee!

Needless to say, it took about a month before I was recovered enough to ride a bike again. I went back to the shop and bought the exact same Raleigh C-40 model I had before. But ever since that day, I have never rode a bike anywhere without a helmet.

My uncle was a keen bike rider, especially after his (early, 52 years old) retirement from his job as a Chief Engineer on merchant ships. One day he was knocked from his bike by a car which was squeezing him into the curb. This car did not stop, but he fell into the path of a following vehicle and was quite badly injured, breaking a collar bone and several ribs.

He recovered quite well, but about 8 months later, after suffering from shortness of breath while out riding (the accident did not stop him!) he went to the doctors, and was quickly diagnosed with Mesothelioma. This is a rare form of cancer which forms in the lining of the organs, especially the lungs. Apparently, years of working in the engine rooms of ships had exposed him to asbestos. This had lain dormant for years, until the trauma of the broken ribs had triggered a reaction which led to the onset of the cancer. He died about 3 months after being diagnosed.

I hope that hit and run driver gets his just deserts some day.

I just took a nasty tumble on my self-balancing unicycle and got scrapped up pretty bad. Warning: the last pic is especially gruesome.
pic

I think the `self balancing mechanism` may need adjusting . Were you solving and unicycling at the same time?

Cheers,
Burgo.

The balancing part was my fault really. I was trying to go up something too steep and it couldn't keep up.

Yeah, I can do 6 solves / mile in less than 6 minutes. I'm practicing going backwards at the moment and hope to post a video of solving cubes with that soon.